He Was One Of Mine
by Elenhin
Summary: The Enforcer beat Iolaus to get to Hercules, and after Hercules takes Iolaus to Hades to beg for his life, Alcmene and Jason stand alone behind… One Shot


**Author's Note:**This is a one shot with Hercules. Alcmene and Jason stands alone on the sand after the Enforcer beat Iolaus to get to Hercules. After Hercules took Iolaus to Hades, they stand behind…

**Warning**: _The warning is placed here for vinsmouse, who wanted a spew warning here, claiming it might be a bad idea to drink while reading the funnier parts. So please keep in mind that drinking any kind of beverage while reading this, might be hazzard'ous to the health of your screen._

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Hercules the Legendary Journey, I make no money and boy does that make it hard to keep the computer with power… No permanent harm will come to Iolaus but a bit of Alcmene's attention and a big bowl of chicken soup might not be amiss at the end of it…

* * *

_**He Was One Of Mine**_

Alcmene turned towards Jason and buried her face against his chest. Hercules had cradled Iolaus in his arms, and then they had both just disappeared. She couldn't believe Iolaus was really dead, she had seen his broken body but she couldn't stand the thought of him being gone. She had known Iolaus since even before Hercules was born, a two year old with the brightest smile you had ever seen.

She hadn't paid much attention to him at first, other than feeling sorry for him. He was always hungry and stealing pastries and other food. His father was a general but never home and the family ever just barely got by. Then one day a grown man with the same sparkling blue eyes had come and had saved her and her unborn baby. He had told her that her unborn son was his best friend, and his name had been Iolaus. He had jokingly denied being the child in the village, but she knew he was and a special bond had formed between them after that.

Iolaus was the son of Erytheia who loved him, but never knew what to do with him. So wild and so energetic. She had her daughters to care for and never could keep Iolaus at home. Alcmene had Hercules, and Iphicles but then her husband's parents took her oldest to raise. They saw her as unfit and she had been alone with Hercules, and Iolaus.

The blond child was only two years older than Hercules but devoted to him. He was fiercely protective of his friend. He didn't allow anyone to be mean to Hercules. When Hercules turned two he was almost the taller of the two, but he was just a baby and Iolaus was four, which the blond considered to be a mature age. He was already learning hunting and he would take Hercules with him on short trips to the woods. Alcmene allowed it, knowing that Iolaus would never allow any harm to come to her son if he could help it.

She cared for him then, very much and with time she came to love him just as much as had he been her own. She felt guilty for the time she spent with him, time Erytheia didn't have. Iolaus would bring her tiny treasures of pretty stones or fancy feathers. He would bring her handfuls of half wilted crushed flowers and the occasional lizard. He presented solstice gifts that he had painstakingly made himself, and always seemed so unsure if they would be good enough.

She tried to feed him when she could, patched his clothes if he tore them when playing and made her best to make sure he knew he was always welcome at her home, and still she had nearly lost him.

Iolaus had been a troubled youth, haunted by his failure to grow tall and strong like his father wanted. Feeling weak because he couldn't support his mother and his sisters better, and it had caused him to stray. A few bad decisions had led to him living on the streets and running with a local gang. Suddenly she heard he was stealing and Alcmene had despaired for both him and Hercules.

Hercules had considered it a betrayal of their friendship and tried to pretend to himself that Iolaus had never existed and then he had made friends with Jason at the Academy.

Jason had warmed a place in her heart right away, but not the way Iolaus had. He was never her boy, he was a young man she cared very much for, one she wanted the best for.

Then everything came to a head and Iolaus was caught and nearly lost his hands as the law said he should. She had intervened, begged and pleaded.

Iolaus who had considered himself to be unworthy of saving had argued, but in the end she had won out and he was given a choice. Prison or the Academy. He had wept when she begged him to make the right choice, when she told him she still loved him, but he had listened to her and gone to the Academy, though by the look on his face he found it even more frightening than prison.

It had been rough at first, Hercules was weary, Jason was protective of his friend and didn't want a thief with them, and Iolaus thought himself still unworthy. For a while she had thought it was all for nothing but then things changed, got better and Hercules discovered he had never truly lost Iolaus, the boy had just lost his way for a while.

Jason had discovered that Iolaus hadn't been trying to push him away, and was actually afraid of doing it. The Prince had quickly warmed up to him after that and the three had been inseparable.

"I can't lose my boy Jason," she sobbed. "I can't lose him."

She had nearly lost him, had sat by his bed as fever raged through his body. She had held him when he cried for his son, so ill he couldn't understand that the boy was already gone. The grief had just about torn her heart out, and Iolaus didn't understand. He cried for Aelus, for the boy whom he had held in his arms when they were both so ill. Once he understood he slipped away. He sought to die she knew, so he could join his wife and his two sons. Nothing she said or did mattered, Iolaus didn't want to live and she had mourned for him as well.

It had been Hercules children who pulled him out of it, but she had never been able to forget those days when she had to fight him to keep him alive. Force every drop of water or broth into his mouth. Struggled against that iron will he had to just die.

He couldn't be gone now, she had fought so hard to keep him with them. He had so much still to do, so many heroic deeds to perform, and she just couldn't believe it was his time.

"He's mine," she wept.

"He is," Jason agreed. When he married Alcmene he had jokingly declared he'd have to make sure to act a proper step father to Hercules. Iolaus hadn't really been included then, but he was now. He wasn't just a friend, he was more, he was a brother, and a son. Seeing the way Alcmene thought about the two of them had changed the way he saw them. As friends and children at the same time. You couldn't take one without the other.

Iolaus had always been something special he marveled. He had only known a few stories at first, and he had despised him for them. The things Hercules said, admiration so clear in his voice when he started, and pain at the end of every story because Iolaus had turned his back on him. Jason had wanted nothing more than to find the youth and beat him senseless, arrest him and throw him into the dungeon. He had hated him, and then he had met him.

A teenager, skinny as a reed and with an attitude that made them shake their head. He nearly hit him then, but instead he settled for just ignoring him. He ignored the lonely young man in the dining hall, the restless tossing and turning at night and the forlorn looks during training.

Alcmene had made him see how foolish he was and he came to understand that underneath that cockiness was nothing more than a youth scared out of his mind. Once he realized that he had found that Iolaus wasn't so bad. He was loyal and trustworthy, just lost and reckless. Soon he had come to know that there was nothing Iolaus wouldn't do for a friend, and he found that there was nothing he wouldn't do for him in turn.

Iolaus his, not quite his son, not quite his brother, a lot more than just his friend. He was simply his.

"Hercules will get him back," he mumbled, not sure if he dared to believe the demigod could really do that. He couldn't imagine what the blond warrior had forced himself through. Dying inside from injuries he had still struggled on. Unable to even stand he had still refused to give in. Had he not done that to himself, had he simply allowed himself to be beaten he might have lived. The damage he had done while searching for Hercules had been what killed him and it took courage of a kind not many had. Jason had only seen it a few times before, he had known Iolaus possessed it but had prayed it would never come to this.

It was almost harder now that Hercules had taken the body and all they could do was wait.

There was nothing worse than to wait and see if you would lose one you loved, one that was your own…

**The End**

_**No one was mine during the writing of this fanfic…**_

_**Please review, the Cricket is hungry...**_


End file.
